


Kindness

by egglorru



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Feels, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 02:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15087368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egglorru/pseuds/egglorru
Summary: The first time Neil experiences kindness that comes with no ulterior motives is at the hands of strangers following the death of his mother.





	Kindness

He’s on foot. He’s torched the car and buried his mother’s remains, and now he’s running, running, for over an hour; his promises to his mother are the mantra he mouths silently to control his breaths and stave off full panic. There’s a city, he doesn’t even know the name. He doesn’t even know his own name. His last identity is back there with his mother; he doesn’t have a new one yet. He can’t think, he’s running so the sharp wind can dry his unshed tears, hurtling himself through dark streets and swerving away from laughter and drunken shouts as he plummets through the downtown.

There’s someone watching him. Behind him.

_Don’t look back._

There’s more than one.

And suddenly they’re chasing, but he’s too fast. And honestly, beyond the survival instinct, he’s either not worried or just can’t care anymore. He can’t tell. He’s too tired.

_Don’t slow down._

His slow shadows have friends up ahead though, calling out and laughing, so he assesses his options, an alley well lit by a street light at the end to the left with two men walking toward him - from the street? Witnesses?  _Don’t trust anyone_ \- and a dark one to the right. He takes a hard right down the side street.

But the man he runs into a few feet into the darkness shoves him back by one shoulder hard enough that he stumbles into the light. He sets his foot down on a glass bottle and when it rolls he careens sideways into the wall. His back and head hit and his breath leaves him in a sick wheeze. He imagines the air coming out of his lungs still smells like gasoline and flames, giving away his mother’s location, so he sucks in a shallow breath and tries to hold it, tries not to pant for air. He fails, but they don’t care about his mother, because they don’t comment beyond laughing and shuffling closer. He wonders vaguely if he’s going to be robbed. His clothes and scuffed duffel don’t look like much, but it is so very much, if he’s searched.

“You on the wrong side of town, you fucking white  _pendejo_.”

And he relaxes. They just have a disagreement over skin. He can survive this, has survived it before. It’s a straightforward transaction, a beating for being new in town and ignorant. It would be easier if he was staying in one place and wouldn’t repeat the mistake, but alas. There’s always a new city, always lowlifes, and he doesn’t always outrun or outwit them.

He sags into the wall, but only for a moment before the man who spoke grabs a fistful of his baggy frayed shirt and pulls him up to get in his face. He closes his eyes and urges himself to stay relaxed. Punches hurt less if you move with them.

The swing doesn’t come, however, for long enough that he opens his eyes again. This isn’t how it normally goes.

The thug that yanked his oversized shirt taut is staring down into the neck hole at his scars, with an expression that is a bad mix of impressed and sympathetic. After a long pause, their eyes meet.

“That’s…fuck.” The man seems to have quite a bit of trouble finding words in English but not Spanish, and his own Spanish is all but gone with time. He recognizes  _heridas_ in the rapid sentences. He thinks it means scars or cuts, maybe. The man finds their common tongue again. “Fuck, you been through enough, kid. Get home safe, just… _¡Chingados! Cielo santo_.” His shirt is released.

So many places he’d lived, without really living. So many places he’d passed through, crouched in, slept in just long enough to stock up the energy to move again and not nearly long enough to call rest.

“I’ve never had one,” he murmurs emptily, and he didn’t even mean to waste the breath it took to vocalize it, but it’s out there. He takes a breath to replace it, inventorying bruises the brick wall just gave his ribs, and the man in front of him smells like cigarette smoke. There’s fire all in his vision, and the sound of blood on vinyl and the sudden roar of the ocean fills his ears, loud enough that he has to slump back into the wall to stop from swaying. 

_Mom. What do I do without you, Mom?_

“Can I bum a cigarette?” He asks distantly of this man who was about the beat the shit out of him a minute ago, and an indeterminate number of seconds later, one is pressed, lit, into his fingers. He can’t process correctly right now, and that’s not good for his survival. He forces his fingers up to his face and breathes in the smoke, pushing out the fresh memories, focusing on the familiar smell. Then he mutters “thanks” and makes his feet move.

He passes seven men and none of them stop him.

On a bus to Nevada, he decides his next name will be Neil Josten. And as he dials the number of a forger in Reno for paperwork, Neil slowly realizes that a street gang in an unnamed California city were the first people in his entire life to give him a moment of mercy and genuine kindness.


End file.
